Huff Enough?

A key to the Giants success in 2010 was the stout hitting that Aubrey Huff provided.  Unfortunately, he has not done much of that this season, 3 homer game notwithstanding.  Could he be breaking out of his up and down pattern, already, as we speak?

Pattern

In 2010, he had a similar slow start, only he had more good BABIP luck last season, as his BABIP was closer to his career BABIP of .291 that he currently has.

Huff 2010:
Apr 5-Apr 28:  86 PA, 75 AB, 8 BB (9.3%), 12 SO (84% contact rate), .227/.314/.373/.687, .242 BABIP.
Apr 30-May 26: 93 PA, 81 AB, 11 BB (11.8%), 9 SO (89%), .309/.387/.469/.856, .324
May 27-Jun 22:  98 PA, 79 AB, 16 BB (16.3%), 6 SO (92%), .392/.490/.797/1.287, .343

Huff 2011:
Mar 31-May 2:  113 PA, 100 AB, 10 BB (8.8%), 19 SO (81%), .190/.257/.290/.547, .207
May 3-May 26:  86 PA, 81 AB, 5 BB (5.8%), 22 SO (73%), .247/.291/.395/.686, .316
May 27-Jun 7:  49 PA, 45 AB, 3 BB (6.1%), 2 SO (96%), .244/.306/.578/.884, .179
(where contact rate = (AB-SO)/AB)

Of course, you have the SSS caveats, but a player's season ebbs and flows during the season, so I believe that it can be instructional to see how he is doing currently.  For example, in Freddie Lewis' last full season with the Giants, he was tremendously hot the first almost two weeks or so, but for the next two months, went from bad to worse, but his overall numbers were still OK until the very end of his starting skein.  His OBP was still good when he was finally benched, .346, but for the prior two months, his OBP was .292.  He was just monstrously hot for 11 games, with a .545 OBP but was killing the offense for two months up top with a .292 OBP.

Huff has been suffering from a very bad BABIP, but sometimes that happens over a full season, like it did for him in 2009.  His contact rate, also, has been bad his first two months roughly, as well.  Likewise, his ISO has not been that good either, below career averages.  Furthermore, his line drive percentage is only at 16% vs. career 19%.  But those are metrics that get worse with age, so perhaps he is just finally succumbing to age degradation.

Huff's Batting Eye Returns For Now

For the past week and a half, roughly, he has gotten his batting eye back, avoiding strikeouts very well, though suffering from low BABIP again.  That is a huge difference from his first two months (roughly) and especially with his struggles around when we lost Pablo Sandoval from the lineup.  According to research, batters who can keep their strikeouts down so that his contact rate is 85% or better are hitters who can keep their batting average looking good.  Plus, hitters who can keep their walks above their strikeouts (BB/K ratio > 1.0) are that much better as well (over 50% of hitters over 1.0 BB/K has over .300 BA).

Hopefully this is a sign that he is no longer swinging at pitches that he cannot get his bat on well, ending up with a lot of strikeouts, reaching for pitches.  But he's still having a lot of bad luck with his balls-in-play (.179 BABIP), resulting in a bad batting line so far despite the good contact rate.  But as he showed with his hitting in May, he can still get his BABIP up to career levels, and if he can continue to avoid the strikeouts, it should start balancing out and reverting to his career mean of .291 BABIP.

Over the rest of the season, if he can keep avoiding the strikeouts like this, he should get his batting average back in the high 200's and get his batting line more near the 800 OPS level that he has been around or above for most of his career, though his overall line might still look bad.  As long as he hits well for the rest of the season, that is what is more important than him getting his pretty sad overall line back into decent territory, as we are in the lead and what he has done don't really matter anymore, only what he does going forward is.